Lirat did not escape the effects of this law. Above
everything else, he held fast to his well-established
reputation of an ill-natured man. He bore very well
with the opinion which denied him talent, but what
he could not tolerate was that they called in question
the propriety of his insulting humanity with his sarcastic jibes.
To avenge the scouring words with which he characterized them, some of the enemies of Lirat attributed to him unnatural vices; others simply called him an epileptic, and these coarse and cowardly calumnies, strengthened every day by ingenious comments, based on "certain" stories which made the rounds of the studios these calumnies found ready listeners willing, some owing to his actual malice, others prompted solely by the intemperance of the painter's tongue, to receive and spread them.
"You know Lirat?. . . . He had another attack yesterday, this time on the street."
And names of important personages were mentioned who had assisted in the scene and who had seen him rolling in the mud, lying, with foam at his mouth.
I must confess that I myself at the beginning of our friendship was greatly troubled by these stories. I could not think of Lirat without at the same time picturing to myself horrible fits in which, I was told, he was writhing. Victim of a delusion born of an obsession with this idea, I seemed to discover in him symptoms of horrible diseases; I often imagined that he suddenly became livid, that his mouth was distorted, that his body was convulsed in horrible spasms, that his eyes, wild and streaked with red, were shunning the light and seeking the shadow of deep vacuous space, like the eyes of trapped beasts that are about to die. And I regretted that I did not see him fall, shriek, writhe here in his studio filled with his genius,
